Fresh Air

Seeing as how it's been over a year, and I'm really tired of looking at that ugly old painting I did of Mike (no offense Mike), I thought I'd post an "Early Bird" I did up in the Eastern Sierra. You can read more about the trip here. : )

Temple Crag above Second Lake. About 6:30 ish am. 6X8 Oil on Panel

The artist in landscape

Here's Mike working on his "experiment"

6x8 oil on panel.

Armand was in front of Mike and I would have put him in, but he was sneezing so much and I'm no good at painting action shots ; ) Ahhh spring, ya gotta love hay fever! (And he was STILL able to knock out a killer painting!)

Oils As Pastel Experiment

It was great to get a session in with the Early Birds! There's a lot of new folks this 'season', so I'm really excited to see more results from our first day out.

This one was an experiment in treating oils more like chalk pastel. I laid a piece of cardboard on my palette and squeezed my oils onto it. The cardboard sucked out the oil, giving the pigment a consistency perfect for scumbling... an old trick I learned from my instructor, Bill Maughan, way back in my art school days. The already super-absorbent clayboard really lent itself nicely to this method.

The piece itself could use some more work (especially if I let ol' Maughan's voice get into my head), but it was fun at any rate! As for why this method instead of just using pastel? I don't own a pastel set. :P I gues it's also an alternative to framing without glass.

Spring Training

Another season of green is upon us and it is time to pull out the field gear and get in shape. There was a good crowd on the Radio Tower Hill this morning, co-workers and blogfounders. Warm and big gusts of wind. Pollen. Sneezing. (not me).
Left to right in the photo above is Mike Dutton, Armand Balthazar, Jimmy Guiterrez, Huy Nguyen, Tim Evatt, and Daniela Strijleva.
Katy Wu was off to the left, and Paul Kratter misread the directions. Post 'em if you got 'em. It was fun.

Sharon Calahan's Painting Blog

Fellow Early Bird Painter Sharon Calahan has been cranking out paintings left and right over the past couple months! They also happen to be gorgeous, as you can see here:

She's been kind enough to share her progress on a blog. Like her friend and colleague, Bill Cone, she also documents the journey behind each piece, whether it's painting on an empty stomach and one hour's sleep, having her paints fall into muddy creekbeds, or recalling the scent of sage and berries in the air during the approach to painting locations. All the things that make working en plein air memorable. Go have a look!

Sharon Calahan's Blog

Getting Back Into It - Slowly

Hmm, I think this blog is in need of some luvin'. Here's some recent early-ish bird stuff:



Hope the rest of the gang is well!

Early Bird Reception Photos

Thanks to those who contributed photos, and sorry to everyone else that I'm so slow in getting these up. Enjoy!

The Studio Gallery at a distance. Unfortunately, it rained a bit that evening, but we still had a great turnout.

The display window, featuring a piece by each artist in the show.


The crowds came in waves, and remained consistent throughout the reception. New and familiar faces, colleagues and collectors, family and friends, and art lovers alike stopped by.


Enrico's watercolors alonside Ernesto's oils. It was a treat to see so many drastically different styles and approaches hanging together, while all remaining equally beautiful.

Noah Klocek (left) with wife Lori, and daughter on the right, and Stefan in the middle.

Jimmy and Sharon's paintings.

Sharon and Bill's. And a green sticker to boot.

Jimmy Gutierrez (facing us) chats up the crowd.

Daisuke and Enrico documenting the evening's festivities, or each others' iPhones in this case.

Me, answering a few questions about my work.

The scene.

Robert Kondo, girlfriend Jenny, and a friend.

Thanks to all who came out to support us!

Before the fog

Well I wasn’t quite as lucky as Mike on Tuesday. I’m still trying to figure out how to use gouache and this sketch is sort of what I saw, and what I wanted to paint in oils before a great big fog bank rolled in killing that great contrast, and my crushing my spirit. I had just finished my block-in, and had a few color notes but I scraped my canvas down anyway. So it goes… I came down the hill to find Bill and Paul packing up their stuff. They had seen the same great light on their way in, only to see it grayed out by the time they got to the site. Needless to say, the minute they drove off, the sun cleared the fog and it was a brand new scene! I hung around with Mike and got another little sketch in too ugly to post though: ) Check out Mike basking in the sun.

View of Diablo from Radio Tower

There are exactly three-hundred and twenty-four things wrong with this sketch, but I decided it was better to embarrass myself for the sake of keeping the blog going! Actually, once the sun decided to stay out, it was an enjoyable session. Hopefully, the trend will continue and we'll all be able to get out more and paint.

As for the show, I'm hoping to gather some photos from the reception last Saturday night before posting a recap. At the moment, I have one, maybe two at best. If anyone else has more, please send them my way.

Early Bird Painters - Show with Reception Feb. 23

My how time flies. It seems like only a few months ago that I met up with some of the Early Birds for the first time to go out on a morning painting session. Err wait, it was just a few months ago.... yet here we are a short time later, with a gallery show just for us!

Here are the dates:

Wednesday, February 20th - Sunday, March 9th

reception: Saturday, February 23rd, 4-8 pm

And here's the Gallery info:

Studio Gallery

1718A Polk Street (between Clay & Washington)

San Francisco, CA 94109

415.931.3130

You can read their write-up and details on this page or visit their website.

It's going to be a fun evening, so those of you living locally in the Bay Area will definitely want to mark your calendars. Stay tuned for photos from the reception.... and maybe some more artwork in the near future if the weather continues to be this nice.